Faith In Real Life Blog: “Do Justice”

Rev. Vernon Gramling

Decatuir Presbyterian Church

May 18, 2023

 

 

 

JAMES 2:1-7

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

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“Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”  James does not mince words. James is adamant.  Favoritism and the teaching of Jesus do not belong together. Favoritism marks out someone as better than.  It is another word for prejudice.  It divides.  Jesus’ love is the opposite. Jesus includes. His ministry is marked by his mindful inclusion of the disenfranchised.  He cared for the poor, the sick, and the mentally disabled.  He cared for sinners of all types—the greedy, the self-righteous and the legalist not to mention the adulterers, prostitutes and criminals.  Following him means doing the work of showing regard—of seeing and caring for all of God’s children. We cannot worship a God of love and act as if some people are better than others.   To do so is to ‘blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you.’

We do not love as God loves. Jesus was unequivocally clear when he called us to Love our Neighbor as ourselves.  The problem is that most of us are terrible at it. We do a decent job of loving neighbors who are like us but we have a heck of time loving neighbors who are different. There is a large gap between our Christian ideals and our actual behavior.  Every one of us plays favorites. Every one of us is prejudiced.  It may be as small as favoring the niece who is always willing to visit or as big as racist bigotry. We favor what works for us and avoid what doesn’t.  Then we rationalize. We make up reasons why our bad behavior is acceptable.  

We are all guilty as charged.

In real life, it is hard, if not impossible, to treat every person with equal regard.  We may wish we could.  We may believe that is how we should act but it just doesn’t happen.  My favorite prejudice is against prejudiced people. I rarely engage. I am far more likely to avoid and dismiss—conveniently forgetting I am making the very distinctions James spoke against.  To quote scripture, I am judging with evil thoughts. I do not like to think of myself as having evil thoughts—that seems a bit much— and I am very reluctant to characterize my prejudices as such.  But I am rationalizing.  My judgments preempt God. I am deciding who is good and who is bad.  

This passage indicts all of us and we need to take the indictment seriously.  But we will not, nor should we, stop there. I am not interested in shame or guilt.  I want us to look with clear eyes at who we are.  It is the only way we can correct our course and follow God.  So, bear with me as I try to pick out some of the more common, real life struggles we have with prejudice.  Focusing on the headline prejudices— race, homelessness or wealth are all very important but such a focus can paradoxically let us off the hook.  Prejudice is woven into our ordinary lives.  If we do not see it, it will continue to separate us.  If we do not see it, it will continue to block care and respect.   

Prejudice is a regular player on our political stage.  The amount of indignation and self-righteousness we can muster when arguing political questions is stunning.  There is almost no actual dialogue.  Invective, demonizing and insisting upon our own way is far more often the norm. Try to have a genuine dialogue around gun control, abortion, LGBTQ issues or immigration.   Even attempts to rise above the fray  communicate our judgements about the fray. Compassion and empathy are rare occurrences when we choose sides politically.  It is hard to look for a third way.  “Either or” thinking is sinful.  Such thinking leaves no room for God but all too often it is our ‘go to’ response.    

 We all have standards of appearance and hygiene. Very few of us could claim we have not done exactly what James describes.  It is well within my memory when the standard ‘acceptable to God’ was that men wore a coat and tie to church.  It is well within my memory that tattoos were ‘lower class.’  Now, coats and ties are rapidly becoming the minority and tattoos are rapidly becoming the majority.  These changes however, occurred with many a disapproving frown—if not a disapproving lecture. It turns out neither are statements about what is acceptable to God.  Instead, they are reflections of our own upbringing which we confused with God’s will. 

Our prejudicial thinking invades our most ordinary social interactions.  How many times have you silently rolled your eyes when someone gets long winded at a meeting.  How many times have you spoken behind someone’s back?  How many times have we smiled on the outside and judged on the inside?  Each of these actions, even if hidden, reveal our inability and unwillingness to respect and regard others.  We may have a ‘good reason’ but that reason is almost always a prejudicial judgement.  

All of these examples are embarrassingly common but just because they are so common, does not change the fact that all of these prejudices are sinful.  

Our turning away from love, our turning away from God when we are prejudicial comes in at least three ways.

FIRST:  We act as if our way is THE way.  We argue to seek agreement rather than to learn.  We participate in polarizing people rather than respecting people.  The problem is not making judgments, the problem is insisting we are right.  It is a failure of humility. It is the sin of hubris. As long as we believe there is a God, there are possibilities we cannot know. 

SECOND: We are unwilling to face our own limitations.  We say: “You shouldn’t be asking.” or You’re asking too much.  We blame the person asking. We take the easy accusations—get a job – quit drinking – have some self-respect—when we are simply afraid that we will be devoured by the needs around us.  You could stand on the corner and hand out money.  But you will soon be bankrupt.  We all have to decide when to say yes or no. It is difficult.  But we should not blame the person asking.  We should face our own limitations and live within them. We are creatures, we are less than God

THIRD:  We turn ordinary differences into value judgments. We can identify differences in skin color, wealth, intelligence, gender—those are attributes which make us individuals—without making judgments about a person’s worth.  That is not our call.  We live in the faith that we are all God’s children and we are loved.  Our prejudices deny that faith. To paraphrase James: “Is it not we who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over us?

We have to see who we are in order to do something about it.  We have to see that we are running off course in order  to examine what it is about us that has us running in the wrong direction.  Fortunately, no one told us that signing up to be a Christian means signing up to be chronically inadequate.  If we apply secular standards to our faith, we can never be enough.  

We must live in the faith that we are loved.  We are not graded on how well we love.  We are called to find life in the direction of love.  I tell our FIRL groups often, if our goal is the North Pole, some of us don’t make it to Norcross.  God shows us a way to live that not only gives life, it is eternal.  Do not let the ideals of our faith crush you.  Do not let your failures stop you.  Do not let what you cannot do stop you from what you can.

Mother Teressa says this much better:

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

– Mother Teresa

LET IT BE SO.